


I Hated to Watch You Leave (So I Loved to Let You Go)

by CreepyLittleLullaby



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Amnesia, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Breath of the Wild Spoilers, Character Death, F/M, Falling In Love, Ghosts, Hurt Link, Hurt No Comfort, Link Uses Sign Language, Love, Memory Loss, Mute Link, Only a little I guess, Role Reversal, Vah Ruta, Zora's Domain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 17:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15029222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreepyLittleLullaby/pseuds/CreepyLittleLullaby
Summary: She was never told his name, and she only knew scrapes of what they told her of him. The meanings beyond their subtle words, but she was still lost. Who had she forgotten? Why and How could she've forgotten someone that could mean so much to her? She never truly got it, it was an enigma she didn't understand. Until she finally got to say good bye. The memories hurt, and the love hurts as well.But the pain is better than the loss.Loss wasn't the knife wound they described, it was an amputation (because you can't heal something that's been removed)





	I Hated to Watch You Leave (So I Loved to Let You Go)

            They never gave him a name.

            Waking up in the shrine of resurrection she had barely even known herself. The only thing to her name had been her name. Traveling to the different villages, meeting new people and taking on shrines and fighting things she knew she’d never seen in her homeland. Even freeing the divine beasts and learning more about her past. Freeing her fellow champions. It all felt so good, and it felt like her burden was growing lighter. The end was near and she was helping people, like she was meant to. But even so, the first thing everyone who knew her asked the same thing before they spoke of anything else.

            _‘I would’ve thought you would go to him first, unless… You really don’t remember him, do you?’_

            Never a name, or a face, and they wouldn’t ever elaborate past mentioning that they thought she’d go to him first. Yet, when she tried to pull together even scraps of her memory, she could see nothing but the other champion’s faces smiling, the beauty of the domain, sun glistening on the luminous stone, the voice of the princess… But every time she tried to imagine a man that she’d look for so desperately that people would be surprised to see her without, she came up blank.

            Only an ache in her chest where her deepest scar lay.

            She shook the thoughts from her head. Right now, she needed to plan her path to Vah Ruta.

            Her beast.

            From what Impa had told her Ruta was causing a dangerous rainfall that was going to ruin her home. To stop it and enter it she needed shock arrows, they left a nasty tingling on her skin, but they would be necessary if she were to shut down its spouts. But beyond even the dangerous shock arrows, Mipha felt… a bone deep nervousness, gnawing in her gut.

            There was a high chance that there would be nothing to guide her within Vah Ruta, not like the other beasts with the spirits of their champions to help her. Only whatever memories the sight would drudge up in her mind. An unreliable ally at best. She also would not rely on her people. They may not have word that she was alive yet, and she… wanted to keep it like that. Just for now. Her father was over protective, and this. It was something she needed to do.

            She’d do it alone if she needed to.

\---

           Getting to Ruta was easy, seeing her was hard.

           Launching water into the sky, the sickly and pink diseased beast’s truck was held high. Letting out a loud trumpet’s cry as it sensed her presence near its lake. Just as the sound echoed through the valley, her eyes went wide and took her breath away.

And she could see him again.

           Blonde hair that fell just perfectly around his face and loop earrings that accented his long and pointed ears, with a smile so beautiful and rare and  _affectionate_  it made something in her chest melt, and she could also see herself. Smiling just as beautifully. Tending to a wound on her arm and swearing to always heal him, no matter when or how bad the wound.

           Her magic glowed sorrowfully in her palms.

           She’d failed that promise. He wasn’t alive. No. She didn’t know where he was. Barely who he was, but she knew he meant so much. His eyes looking at her like she was the only one he’d see for a thousand years. Her fists clenched and she grabbed her bow, the quiver crackling on her back.

           He believed in her back then. She could feel it. So she’d believe in herself right now and take down Ruta, and Ganon, and honor his memory with all she could in her fractured mind. Find where he was hopefully. At least… attempt to say goodbye.

           It felt like she never got that chance 100 years ago.

           If only she could see him once more.

           She split the water quickly, her slim body moving through the waves easily as Ruta gave another mighty roar. Ice shooting at her, Mipha simply moved quicker. She didn’t have time to break the ice with the Shekiah slate. All she could do was dive down into the depths and pray. Before shooting up into the waterfalls spouting from Ruta’s sides.

           The arrows crackled and hissed in her grasp, but she only held tighter as the electricity nipped at her skin and fired. Again and again and again. Until Vah Ruta’ assault upon the heavens ceased and the entrance to her beast was open to her once again. The travel gate glowing a brilliant blue as the slate interacted with her beast. Mipha’s heart beat in her chest rapidly, hammering rapidly as if she were about to have a heart attack as no friendly voice spoke to her, no kind voice echoing from the interior of the beast that was so, so dark.

           She missed the warmth of the memory as she stepped into the beast. The door slamming shut behind her making her yell in surprise and fear. Arms grasping at her trident and shield as her eyes failed to adjust. It was so dark, so alone, so quiet, so cold.

           Until there was a hum.

           And she felt warm again as light slowly blossomed onto the ground. Swirling in a beautiful green like vines and flowers across the floor, combating the sickly pink of the beats interior. It was so pretty, the light felt so lively, it was comforting to even see a sign of goodness in the dark beast that Ruta had become. It helped keep the hope that would have been extinguished in all of the other beasts without the guidance of her friends.

           Her heart ached at the memory of them and the blonde. All people she’d never see again.

           All people she’d left behind.

           She forced her mind to focus on her footsteps. One foot in front of the other, distracting her mind from wandering off of her task. The first thing she had needed to was to find a map of Ruta, she could fuzzily remember where things were within the beast, but she’d need to be able to control aspects of the beast to get to some of them. The one guarded by fire and the one guarded by Ruta’s largest gear. It would also make the trunk’s terminal easier, though that wasn’t impossible without the map due to Revali’s Gale and the paraglider.

           (With Revali’s Gale she could almost understand his ego, his ability was certainly useful and versatile even outside of combat-especially out of combat).

           The light moved forward, glowing even as it submerged beneath a water platform and reaching past the metal gate that blocked her way before moving like a wave to curl around a guidance stone within the room. The map terminal. Perfect. She smiled and the roomed seemed to hum again, happily as she used crynosis to lift the gate and let her duck under the gates and get her slate onto the terminal.

           It didn’t quite reveal everything that she didn’t know, but it would definitely help as the glowing spots appeared. The silence buzzed within her ears, almost ringing. Even with added light that activating the map had gave the inside of the beast still looked so…

           Dead.

           Being alone was awful she decided. Terribly and truly awful.

           But, as she activated terminal after terminal she could hear the walls of Ruta hum and sing so silently. Green light spreading under her feet as she walked, and beneath her hands when she fell. As if encouraging her. Supporting her. And it filled her with a warmth she hadn’t thought possible to feel while the burden was still so heavy upon her shoulders. As the light made funny shapes and silly lines that made her giggle quietly with an amused smile, or held a warmth so gentle on her skin that she could almost feel it move to the beat of the humming.

           Until she finally reached the last terminal, covered in a shroud of black and pink and she came face to face with the Scourge of Ruta. It was hideous, with a brilliantly blue spear that glowed so viciously compared to the soothing green energy that had accompanied her. But at least with an enemy in front of her she could quiet the fear within the memories of the wounds that had pushed her to sleep away the last hundred years of her life and focus on the fight.

            _‘Fight for your life, and its death.’ ‘Avenge me.’ ‘You got this Mipha!’ A gentle smile lit with the glow of her magic._  She’s lost them forever. But they lived on in her heart. This victory, would be for them.

           And for her.

           It shrieked and she held her trident firmly and shot forward. Dodging its jabs and countering with flurries of her own. Shooting the vivid eye in its grotesque face to stun it and allow her to get closer for harder hits. However, she was glad she didn’t run out of arrows when the blight flooded the battle field and forced her to change her strategy. Shooting at it and swimming at it whenever she got it to drop to the floor until it finally began to bleed out its black malice and disappeared with a violent scream before the room’s platforms sank back down to normal and the hum of Ruta returned. The main terminal now glowing a healthy orange as Ruta finally shimmered a healthy blue once more.

           The nostalgia and relief was overwhelming as she placed a hand on Ruta smiling.

           “Hello again old friend.” The hum got a little louder and began to warble in pinch as a greenish blue glow floated beside her. Startling her as she spun on her heel. Eyes searching until they fell onto the spirit.

           It was him.

           The flames licked at his legs and a familiar smile held on his lips as he hummed again, his eyes never leaving hers once as he floated forward, arms raising up to his chest and moving in a language she hadn’t known that she even remembered.

            _‘I knew you’d come back to me, I believed in you. You’ve done so well… you know that, right Mipha?’_  He stopped, not close enough for her to reach for him, his eyes fluttered with anxiety and sorrow as he looked down, biting his lip like a guilty child. Her voice failed her in this moment, just like always.

            _‘I’m so sorry, this is my fault. You bear this burden because I was not strong enough. I couldn’t watch you die. I couldn’t bare to see you leave. So I let you go. I left you. And took my place here, in your beast. She’s been my small bit of comfort for these hundred years you know… that and knowing you were alive, and that you would come for your beast eventually. That I would get to see you with my own eyes, just once more…’_  He smiled.

           ‘ _I love to see you. And I’m so glad to see this day has arrived.’_ His smile turned into a frown, and immediately Mipha wanted to smooth the worry and sooth the deep depression from his eyes. The long existing sorrow, the burden. Hers was so heavy, but it felt like taking his would be so light. Finally, he looked back up at her, determination in his eyes as he moved forward again. Pressing a ghostly hand to her chest and letting the green light bath the both of them in this secret and intimate place.

            _‘I’m gone now Mipha, so I, like all the other Champions, have a gift for you. One that is useless to me know in my death. Please take Farore’s Courage from me now… and know that I will always be here, supporting you and waiting to aid you in the final fight with Ganon.’_ His face moved just in front of her, lips just barely brushing hers and his voiceless spirit brushed into her mind. Allowing no words nor gestures for his last message.

            _‘I love you.’_

Then he was gone. Truly gone. And for the first time since Mipha woke,she cried.                

How truly bittersweet it was to have loved and been loved.


End file.
